Why are we a divided Nation?

So what if we force retirement deductions, but allow competition? Do you think SS is the best we can do?

 

The relevance is that if the chart is wrong in one instance, it can't be relied on in any other instance. As for federal spending, in the 1950s, we weren't paying 60% of the budget to transfer payments. I looked it up. In 1954, transfer payments amounted to just 3.3% of all federal spending. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/54/item/19007/toc/311599

And the problem is the unfunded liabilities, not the current spending.

No it won't.

"Taken together, the combined unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare are more than $50 trillion, according to official government projections."

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/t...s-even-deeper-than-the-experts-say-2018-06-15

Note that the current budget is around $4 trillion, and the GDP is $20 trillion. And the authors of the above article think that $50 trillion is optimistic.

Which it has to either borrow from the open market or tax from people, because there's nothing in the SS fund.

"What is a Ponzi scheme?
A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. In many Ponzi schemes, the fraudsters focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors to create the false appearance that investors are profiting from a legitimate business.

Why do Ponzi schemes collapse?

With little or no legitimate earnings, Ponzi schemes require a consistent flow of money from new investors to continue. Ponzi schemes tend to collapse when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or when a large number of investors ask to cash out."

https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answersponzihtm.html

 

Oh but haven't the flyover flock told you? Trump will win at least 48 states!

 

After all the crap that's going down i just have this to say.

We are a divided nation because Democrats are not good people.

 

Let me just stop you right here and point out the problem... The 1965 Immigration Reform Act. Since 1965, and starting in earnest in 1970, we started bringing in millions of low wage workers. That has kept the wages of the lowest skilled and lowest educated Americans artificially low while increasing the demand for the highest skilled and highest educated Americans. That is 90% of the difference between what was happening in the 1950s and what started happening in the 1970s to now as far as income differentiation goes. The remaining 10% can be accounted for by the reduction in the top rates, allowing for people to keep more of their own money; and technological change, the reduced need for blue collar workers. If we could close the gates, bring immigration levels down to a reasonable level, say no more than 50K a year, wages at the low end would start to rise again and real incomes would go up.

 

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That's the difference between investing in a company and investing in stocks.

 

Well yeah you have to appeal first, get cracking

 

This crap doesn't work on me.

Third grade called it wants it's witty Comeback back

 

Black people are indeed victims of racist whites. Likewise, but less often and with typically less impact, of racist blacks.

 

SCOTUS doesn't have to hear your appeal. Get a clue.

 

I didn't say appeal to the supreme Court, start in the lower courts.
Otherwise you're just bumping your teeth together.

 

I don't care. And for two reasons: A) They aren't the same people. Liberals like to trumpet this like it's some awful thing that the "1%" keep getting more and more of the money, but the fundamental mistake they make or are covering up is that those 1% in year ten are not the same 1% from year one. Most of the people in the 1% in year ten are NEW people who weren't in the 1% ten years earlier. They represent success, the American dream, making it big. And B) They aren't taking anything away from anyone. Liberals like to make it seem like the economy is some fixed quantity so that the more the "1%" get, the less there is for everyone else, but that's not how it works. Almost everyone in the 1% earned their money through business success, meaning they had to give value for value. Every dollar they made was the result of selling something that people were willing to pay for. Our top three or four richest men today got rich selling zeroes and ones, i.e., computer programs. How much money did any of them take from the middle class or the poor? Not a damn dime. They created their wealth, and people gladly paid them for their products. So bring on the billionaires. Let me be one of them.

I consider a 75% rate outright theft. It's not the government's money.

Why should we, though? I don't think we should be paying anything for immigrants, period. And Americans need to get up off their asses and start making something of themselves.

Why $10M? Why not $20M? Or $5M? It's just so arbitrary, and who are you to decide how much is enough for someone else to live off of? That's so arrogant, it's breathtaking. As for why there were so few billionaires in the 50s, that's because of the tax rates. There may well have been more, but because of the punitive taxation, they didn't bother making that much money.

Yep, still don't care.

This second chart is really screwy. It doesn't show when the economy hit zero or less, it stops at 2%. And the Reagan tax cuts absolutely had something to do with the Reagan growth years, but it has it as coming after growth had reversed course under Bush. The first chart makes growth (and recession) so small as to make it seem like there hasn't been that much change at all. And both charts do something misleading, and that's to connect the tax rates by sloping lines, as if there was a period of intermediate rates in between years, which of course there wasn't. Anyway, my response would be that top marginal rates are only one aspect of the economy, and other aspects also play major roles in the growth or stagnation of it. For example, Bush the younger cut tax rates slightly, but he also ballooned the size of the budget and the budget deficit, taking much more out of the economy than he put in by cutting taxes. Obama grew the money supply more than Bush did, so even the meagre growth rates under Obama have to be taken with a grain of salt. Part of the beauty of the Reagan tax cuts was that he cut rates for everybody, not just the top rate. But cutting that top rate down below 50% absolutely allowed for amazing growth at the top of the charts, and yay for that.

I don't think raising taxes is "fair" at all. There's no reason the government should be taking people's money at confiscatory rates. As I've shown from numerous sources, there's just no way to pay for universal health care, not even at confiscatory rates, and wealthy people know how to move their money around so they don't have to pay confiscatory rates, so you wouldn't collect as much as you think you would. As for the military budget, the only "sane" level is the one that keeps the US as the world's sole superpower, which is what we're spending now or even a little bit more because I'm not convinced we're staying at the forefront of computer technology. The next war is going to start in cyberspace, I'm sure of it. The very first move will be to take down our network and disable as much of our smart technology as possible. Are we ready? I don't think so.

 

44% of families that use welfare have a job.
Are you Native American?

 

You guys, this is literally a one word answer.

Media

Sure, people dislike certain people for certain reasons, but the amount of hatred ginned up by the media pales anything that tries to compare to it.

 

Strange, isn't it?

Yep, born right here in the US of A.

 

Are you prepared to let people risk their capital?

 

People like to fight on the internet, and the internet is also full of misinformation designed to get people angry at other people. Politicians and media personalities and corporations have all been profiting from this without regard for the consequences (dividing America rather bitterly in the long term). That's the bottom line. Foreign interference efforts seeking to enhance these negative effects also contribute, but that can be categorized under the internet and its wealth of misinformation (malicious disinformation in those cases).

 

It is not relevant anymore. I do not believe in racism, it is just an excuse to divide people and enslave them.

 

Yes, you paid but you did not pay for your family full price. All insurances private or public are subsidized by the government.
The problem is a high cost of health care.
High cost is a result of government policies.
The policies are to keep and feed private health insurances with absolutely no reason.
The policies are to create artificial shortage and jack up the prices by banning Medicare for people younger then 65 y.o.

 

No, not strange. It's a symptom of wage inequality. Remember those charts you didn't like?
Didn't ask you where you were born. Was your family immigrants? I suspect they were. I suspect they were also poor, but I could be wrong.

 

Actually division is built-in the laws. More then half of population have unconstitutional privileges. It is very easy to pit people against each other by providing special rights to one group and taking away those rights from another group.

 

Not a symptom of wage inequality, it's a symptom of a) way too many poor immigrants combined with b) way too generous welfare programs.

You asked me if I was a native. I am. All my family were natives, too. Most recent immigrant is a great-grandfather on my father's side. On my mother's side, they are West Virginia hillbillies going back to the 19th century. And yep, we're all poor, but not on welfare.

 

I suggest you check with Social Security what you put in. I was shocked. If I lived till 71 I would have gotten back everything I paid in and after that I’m living on the dole. Check out what you paid in Social Security and you’ll be surprised. When I began teaching I out very little in because I earned very little.
You’re lucky that you have a house that you could rent out rooms but most people don’t have that. Well if the government confiscates your money from investing it then obviously you’re not doing a very good job of budgeting. May I suggest you start renting out rooms now so you can invest

 

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and I bet you don’t think you have a bigoted bone in your body.
I guess Democrats are bad people because they fight for civil rights and equality for all people. I guess Democrats are bad people because they are repulsed by children put in cages. I guess Democrats are bad people because they fight for education.

 

Thanks,
That explains it.